OC Rue wips and previous attempts

I just thought that it may be interesting for you, it's sort of "behind scenes" but awkward. Drawing LORE. It probably doesn't show how I usually work, but I learned a lot working on this piece ✨

You probably remember this initial sketch that I posted back in summer. Actually the pose here is different from what my commissioner sent me in the start, and because of the perspective (or lens distortion) of this ref picture (it was a cosplay model) I asked for another pose reference. But both references had same detail - rotated torso, so I tried to stick to it

I liked how it's going in the start, but later I realised that I don't know how to do it because of the composition (it feels weird for me to rotate the picture to see main details of the drawing - especially face). I also couldn't get right proportions of the character. And rotated torso is hard to draw for me, it makes hips and waist look so good but I struggle with drawing unusual positions @.@

Then I thought that I should change the angle. And experiment to get interesting colors, because it's just a sketch and I can make it better later. I did it sketchy (muddy even) to understand better what I want to do with the drawing. I changed the arms positions several times and added simple background. And I ended up not knowing how to continue it or how to clean it (´。＿。｀)

Then I started from scratch using previous colored sketch as a reference. It became cleaner, but had weird colors and I didn't like how the characters looks. I wanted it to look better. The drawing felt wrong for many reasons (I think the face doesn't look like her, and her body is more milf-y, or probably the head is to small here but it looks weird when I make it bigger etc) and I decided to start over again. The commissioner said that I can take my time to rework it UwU

During these failed attempts I also learned how to put colors better. I tried to add reflected light/colors (from sand, hair and towels) and it looks bad here, but practice makes perfect.

I tried to do simpler pose, it has nothing in common with references. It also looks similar to another commissioned art of this OC so I didn't stick to it. But it helped me to better understand what figure she has and what my sketches lacked. I'll probably reuse this sketch later..........

And then by coincidence I found a sculpture with rotated torso that inspired me to try again - with initial pose idea. It looks similar to the first reference but has better perspective (no lens distortion?). It's important for me because I still learn to draw and want to see how body works and depict it as good as I can, and filtered images with lens distortion sometimes are tricky to use for further details and rendering. So if you look through pictures for commissioning/drawing - I highly recommend you to use sculpture, specialised photos for artists, or even classic art (chef's kiss) along with other refs that were initial inspiration, as additional references :)

I really loved that Rue finally looks as I wanted. So everything from that moment came smoothly and I finished the piece with no struggle (and it was fast compared to all the time I took to draw this piece).

In the end I realised how important it is for me to take time and follow my intuition. And that sometimes I need to look for classic art inspo hehe. I felt that something is wrong with my first sketches and kept trying to find how to do it the way I like it. I need to enjoy the process. And failing is okay because I can learn from it. I also had a lot of bad thoughts about myself during work, I compared myself to other artists and felt not good enough. But I ended up with the result I like and a feeling that I did a good job 🌸

Now I can finally move on and finish other drawings. I need to draw previous poll winner Artemisia (I'm sorry for being late) and then continue commissions. Please vote in this month's poll if you didn't, I need to choose winner but there are only 17 votes UnU

I also added a tier for artistic freedom slot if anyone's interested!

And if you're reading this, thank you so much! I appreciate your support and interest in my art despite how slow and unorganized I am sometimes. Have a good day! ~